Can You Build a High-Impact Brand in a “Soft Girl” Era? ft. Fractional COO, Brooke Dumas
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Have you noticed the swing from hustle culture to the “soft girl era” in the online business space? Or maybe you’ve heard of the recent comments Emma Grede has shared regarding being a 3-hour mom. Today, Victoria and her guest are diving into this topic. Brooke Dumas is a Fractional COO, strategic partner, and serial entrepreneur who has built and scaled multiple businesses. She partners with multi-six and seven figure businesses through Tailored Premier and brings a grounded, intentional approach to scaling a business sustainability.
In this episode, Victoria and Brooke discuss why it’s so important to define your priorities and version of success before scaling a business. They talk about what Brooke looks for during a business audit, building to sell, and the mental load so many founders struggle with as they grow their businesses.
If you’ve ever wondered if you can have both a successful business while being present in your life, or if you want to lean into your soft girl era but aren’t sure how to get there, this is for you. Whether you’re in a hustle season or leaning into your own soft-girl era, this episode will leave you feeling excited about growing in a way that’s intentional and aligned with your values and goals.
Introduction to Brooke Dumas
Brooke Dumas is a Fractional COO, strategic partner, and serial entrepreneur who has built and scaled multiple businesses. She works closely with founders navigating growth and transition, and is known for bridging big-picture vision with systems and structures needed to support it.
She partners with multi-six and seven figure businesses through Tailored Premier, where she helps founders clarify direction, restructure teams, and implement operational systems that create stability and momentum. She brings a grounded, intentional approach to business, prioritizing long-term sustainability and alignment.
Brooke’s Entrepreneurship Journey
Like many business owners, Brooke’s entrepreneurship journey has been anything but linear. However, she’s a great example of how we collect skills and tools from each experience that can positively contribute to what we build today.
Wedding Planning Agency
Brooke’s first business started when she was 21-years-old. Her first business was a wedding planning agency that she ran for 7 years in Michigan before relocating to San Diego. The wedding industry is emotional and busy, and she decided to pivot to only overseeing the weddings after hitting burnout.
Retreat Planning Agency
After moving to San Diego, she started an international retreat planning agency. She partnered with yoga facilitators and meditation specialists, who would come to her pitching their retreat vision. Brooke would plan all the nitty gritty details and go onsite to help execute.
Traveling around the world was exhausting and burnt her out as well. At this time, she chose to sell her wedding planning agency. Then, a new and unexpected opportunity presented itself. Brooke was helping a client plan a retreat, and a few weeks in she offered her a full-time job offer as the number two at her company.
During that time, they sold over three million dollars worth of retreats. Brooke was heavily involved in the marketing, developing, design, and execution of webinar funnels that generated millions in revenue. She quickly learned she took on an integrator role—and was very good at it. She worked with her for two years before deciding she was ready to go off on her own.
Tailored Premier
For the past 3 years, Brooke has worked with Tailored Premier, a strategic advisory firm founded by Jessica Marx that supports entrepreneurs. She’s experienced what it’s like to enjoy life while growing a really successful business on the side. She feels the most lit up about her business and aligned in her life and career than she ever has before.
Hustle Culture and the “Soft Girl” Era
Brooke leaned into hustle culture for nine years of entrepreneurship, and she doesn't regret it. She acknowledges that the hustling got her to a place where she’s able to make decisions and has more freedom. Even if she could go back and redo it, she wouldn’t because it’s gotten her to an amazing place in her life.
There’s been a huge pendulum swing from the hustle era of grinding and maximizing every minute, to the “soft girl” era of setting hard boundaries and rarely working. Brooke believes you have to adapt to however life feels in the moment. There may be seasons of hustle and seasons of slowing down, and then the cycle might repeat. It’s important to take what serves you from both areas and figure out what works best for you and your business.
Why Big Leaders are Taking a Step Back
So many big leaders in the online business space have taken a step back in certain areas. Jenna Kutcher recently shut down her very successful podcast. Jasmine Star has slowed down in different areas. Amy Porterfield shut down her signature program.
While we don’t know for sure their reasons for making these changes, there are some possibilities. Brooke thinks burnout could be a huge factor. If you run a personal brand or are the face of your brand, it’s very hard to take a break from your company. If things are dependent on the founder, they may feel like they can’t take a day off. That business model is also really hard to sell, and if they can’t sell or step away from it, they could feel like their only option is to close it.
Important Things to Do Before Scaling Your Business
As a business owner, a big goal you may have is to scale your business. Before doing so, there are a few things to consider.
Define Your Priorities
Set your priorities early on, so you can build your business around them. Is your priority flexibility for your family? Making as much money as possible? Taking care of your health?
Chase Your Version of Success
Everyone has a different definition of what success looks like to them. For Victoria, she loves that she gets to build a business on her own terms. She has minimal childcare and gets to show up for her kids’ school events when she wants to. She’s emotionally and physically available for them, and that’s very intentional.
Victoria and Brooke discussed the Emma Grede “max 3-hour mom on weekends” controversy, and how if Victoria chased Emma’s version of success, it would be out of alignment with her own values and convictions. No matter how much money or visibility she’d get, it wouldn’t feel like success for her.
Define Your Role as the CEO
Your founder and CEO role should be clearly defined, so that the time you spend on the business gives you the highest ROI. You should be doing what you do best, and things that no one on the team can do better than you.
Typically, the high ROI activities for CEOs are business development, market research looking at strategy, and mapping out the next growth phase of the business. Get crystal clear on your job description as the founder and understand that your level of involvement may ebb and flow.
What Brooke Looks for During a Business Audit
Founders come to Brooke thinking they have a marketing, sales, or team problem. Sometimes they’re right, but more often than not, they miss the actual problem or there are additional problems leading up to the primary one. When Brooke does an audit, founders fill out a comprehensive business performance assessment covering offer suite, team, marketing, legal, finances, etc.
Founders also have to answer questions about how many hours they want to work, what lifestyle they want to have, and if they want to take vacations. Brooke analyzes all of the areas and their goals, then puts together strategic recommendations and key initiatives to get them to where they want to go.
At Tailored Premier, they work to set the businesses up to sell. Even if acquisition isn’t the goal, this creates options. Brooke really looks at the team structure and job descriptions, as well as the offers and marketing strategies for this. If the founder is the primary face of the brand, she looks at how you can incorporate other team members or change the approach so that the business could be positioned to sell in the future.
How to Compartmentalize Work and Life
It’s a common struggle for business owners to try to be present instead of constantly thinking about work. Many founders have a heavy mental load when it comes to everything that has to get done. Brooke recommends creating a task inside Asana or your project management tool of choice so you don’t forget about those to-dos, but only act on them when it’s the right time.
You can do this same procedure with personal life to-dos as well. Brooke has tasks in her Asana to remind her of birthdays, sending gifts, and giving her dog their heartworm medicine. This frees up so much time and mental bandwidth.
Optimize without Sacrifice
Brooke is currently in the research and development phase of a new business venture, and she’s being very mindful about it. She’s exploring how it could fit into her life and essentially create passive revenue. Right now, her work is very dependent on her showing up, so she’s curious about what this new model could look like. Brooke is optimizing thinking about how the new business could support a growing family and the present life she wants to continue to have. To connect further with Brooke, visit her website here.
Key Quotes
“You can hustle for a long time, and then you can have a season where you’re able to pull back a little bit. It’s taking a little bit of the good from both of those things and figuring out how it works for you and your business at this time.”
Brooke Dumas
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